Open Bible Data Home About News OET Key
OET OET-RV OET-LV ULT UST BSB MSB BLB AICNT OEB WEBBE WMBB NET LSV FBV TCNT T4T LEB BBE Moff JPS Wymth ASV DRA YLT Drby RV SLT Wbstr KJB-1769 KJB-1611 Bshps Gnva Cvdl TNT Wycl SR-GNT UHB BrLXX BrTr Related Topics Parallel Interlinear Reference Dictionary Search
InterlinearVerse GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOB JOS JDG RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM PSA AMOS HOS 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR PROV ECC SNG JOEL MIC ISA ZEP HAB JER LAM YNA (JNA) NAH OBA DAN EZE EZRA EST NEH HAG ZEC MAL LAO GES LES ESG DNG 2 PS TOB JDT WIS SIR BAR LJE PAZ SUS BEL MAN 1 MAC 2 MAC 3 MAC 4 MAC YHN MARK MAT LUKE ACTs YAC (JAM) GAL 1 TH 2 TH 1 COR 2 COR ROM COL PHM EPH PHP 1 TIM TIT 1 PET 2 PET 2 TIM HEB YUD (JUD) 1 YHN (1 JHN) 2 YHN (2 JHN) 3 YHN (3 JHN) REV
Yhn C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21
Yhn 11 V1 V3 V5 V7 V9 V11 V13 V15 V17 V19 V21 V23 V25 V27 V29 V31 V33 V35 V37 V39 V41 V43 V45 V47 V49 V51 V53 V55 V57
OET (OET-LV) And Maria was the woman having_anointed the master with_ointment, and having_wiped_off the feet of_him with_the hairs of_her, whose the brother Lazaros was_ailing.
OET (OET-RV) (Maria was the one who later poured fragrant oil over Yeshua and wiped his feet with her hair.) But now their brother was seriously ill
In this section, a friend of Jesus, a man named Lazarus, became sick and died. Jesus waited until after he died before he went to Lazarus’ town. Jesus told his disciples that they should go because Lazarus was asleep and he wanted to wake him. They did not understand, so Jesus had to tell them that Lazarus was dead.
Here are other possible section headings:
Lazarus got sick and died
Jesus waited until after Lazarus died before going to him
This paragraph introduces some new people, Jesus’ friends. There were two sisters, Mary and Martha, and one brother, Lazarus. Lazarus became seriously ill, so the sisters sent a message to Jesus.
This verse gives some background information about one of the people in the story, Mary. In some languages it may be natural to indicate that this is background information by placing the verse in parentheses. For example:
(This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.) (GNT)
(Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick,
It was Mary’s brother Lazarus who was sick.
Mary’s brother Lazarus was the one who was ill.
Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick: This clause indicates that this Mary was the sister of the sick man, Lazarus. That means that Martha was also Lazarus’ sister.
Mary was a common name in Jesus’ time. There were many women named Mary living in Jerusalem and the surrounding villages. Several of them are mentioned in the Gospels. Here the author explained which Mary he was referring to.Mary was no longer living at the time when John wrote his Gospel, toward the end of the first century A.D. That is why English translations say “Mary was the one who…” rather than “Mary is the one who….” For example:
This Mary… (NIV)
was to anoint the Lord with perfume
Mary was the woman who poured perfume on the Lord Jesus
It was this same Mary who later poured sweet-smelling oil on Jesus’ feet
was to anoint the Lord with perfume: This is background information. It mentions something that the original readers knew about Mary. This incident is not described until the next chapter.This is probably the same event described in Matthew 26:6–13 and Mark 14:39. At the time of Lazarus’ illness it had not happened yet. In some languages it may be natural to make it explicit that this event had not happened yet. For example:
Mary was the woman who later put perfume on the Lord (NCV)
anoint the Lord: The Greek word that the BSB translates as anoint here means “pour on, put on.” Mary poured her perfume onto the Lord’s feet. In some languages it may be necessary to make it explicit that the Lord refers to Jesus:
poured perfume on the Lord Jesus
perfume: The Greek word that the BSB translates as perfume refers to any sweet-smelling oil. It would be put on people’s own bodies or on the bodies of dead people to make them smell nice. It is good to use the same word that you used in Matthew 26:7 and Mark 14:3.
and wipe His feet with her hair.)
and wiped/dried the perfume on his feet with her hair.
and then used her hair to wipe them dry.
and wipe His feet with her hair: Verse 11:2b continues to give background information regarding Mary. After pouring perfume on Jesus’ feet, she wiped his feet dry with her long hair. In this way she gave Jesus great honor. The early Christians who read the Gospel knew about this and remembered her because of it.
In some languages it may be natural to rearrange the information in these verses. You may want to tell the reader when the women are introduced that Lazarus was their brother. It may then not be necessary to repeat the information that Lazarus was ill. For example:
1–2Now a man named Lazarus was ill. He lived in the village of Bethany, where his sisters Mary and Martha also lived. (This was the Mary who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil and wiped them with her hair.)
Note 1 topic: figures-of-speech / events
ἦν δὲ Μαρία ἡ ἀλείψασα τὸν Κύριον μύρῳ, καὶ ἐκμάξασα τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ταῖς θριξὶν αὐτῆς
was (Some words not found in SR-GNT: ἦν Δέ Μαρία ἡ ἀλείψασα τόν Κύριον μύρῳ καί ἐκμάξασα τούς πόδας αὐτοῦ ταῖς θριξίν αὐτῆς ἧς ὁ ἀδελφός Λάζαρος ἠσθένει)
John refers to an event that would happen at a time following the events recorded in this chapter ([12:1–8](../12/01.md)). If this might confuse your readers, you could translate this as a future event. Alternate translation: [Now it was Mary who would later anoint the Lord with myrrh and wipe his feet with her hair]
Note 2 topic: translate-kinship
ὁ ἀδελφὸς Λάζαρος
¬the (Some words not found in SR-GNT: ἦν Δέ Μαρία ἡ ἀλείψασα τόν Κύριον μύρῳ καί ἐκμάξασα τούς πόδας αὐτοῦ ταῖς θριξίν αὐτῆς ἧς ὁ ἀδελφός Λάζαρος ἠσθένει)
Because those who wrote scripture usually listed the names of siblings in order from oldest to youngest, the list in [11:5](../11/05.md) suggests that Martha was the oldest and Lazarus was the youngest of the three siblings. If your language uses different words for brother depending on birth order, use the word for a younger brother here. Alternate translation: [younger brother Lazarus]
OET (OET-LV) And Maria was the woman having_anointed the master with_ointment, and having_wiped_off the feet of_him with_the hairs of_her, whose the brother Lazaros was_ailing.
OET (OET-RV) (Maria was the one who later poured fragrant oil over Yeshua and wiped his feet with her hair.) But now their brother was seriously ill
Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.
Acknowledgements: The SR Greek text, lemmas, morphology, and VLT gloss are all thanks to the CNTR.
Open Bible Data site copyright © 2023–2026 Freely-Given.org.
Python source code for creating these static pages is available on GitHub under an open licence.
For Bible data copyrights, see the details for each displayed Bible version.
The Open English Translation (OET) main site is at OpenEnglishTranslation.Bible or OET.Bible.